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Friday, May 1, 2015

Top Ten Ways to Burn Down Your Public Persona

Top Ten Ways To Utterly Burn Down Your Authorial Public Persona

1. Bad mouth your editor at a conference luncheon - where at least four of her coworkers are in attendance.
2. Get involved in EVERY, single fight that ever comes up in author loops. Points if you don't actually know anything about the issue, but you wade in with the name calling right out of the gate! That'll get attention.
3. Laugh at another author's book(s).
4. Accuse a fellow author of some kind of misconduct - buying reviews, stealing your ideas - and do it in the most public venue you can find, like Twitter. Make sure to tag the world. You want that to go viral.
5. Disrespect a host. Speaking at a library? Why should you care what kind of mess you leave? They have janitors.
6. Complain. Doesn't matter about what. Your health. Your poor bowel habits. Your advances. This is totally appropriate social media content. People need to know.
7. Ignore everything more experienced authors have to say. You already know it all anyway.
8. Passive-aggressive submissions - you're an author. Those querying and submission guidelines are for newbies, not for seasoned pros like you.
9. Deadline, shmedline. It was just a suggestion. You'll get to it when you get to it. The editor isn't going to get to it for awhile anyway. And you know? Starting strong and finishing strong is for suckers. Just turn in what you have. Editing houses have all kinds of ghosty types who can finish your novel for you.
10. VIVA LA DIVA, BABY! You worked hard on that book, by the Gods. You will be treated like the second coming of Beyoncé or you will cut some one, so help you.

Blessed Beltaine.
Remember. A public persona means pretending you possess - or know someone who possesses - a modicum of common sense. You also practice kindness. Those two things are really all it takes. There are nuances. There are tweaks. But starting with common sense and kindness will take you an amazingly long way in this world. Hey. I'm a romance writer. You knew it was going to come down to love conquers all.